Bob Donnan-US PRESSWIREKentucky star freshman Michael Kidd-Gilchrist has had several off-the-court obstacles, including the deaths of his father and uncle and a speech impediment, but he finds solace on the court where he has led the Wildcats to Monday's national title game.

NEW ORLEANS – The door swings open to the Kentucky locker room, and a dozen men with cameras and microphones rush in looking for the same player: Michael Kidd-Gilchrist.

He is the motor for a 37-2 team on the verge of a national title, the freshman who always seems to come up with a play when it matters the most. He makes it look easy on the basketball court.

This is the hard part.

The cameras surround him. He leans forward on a folding chair, making his 6-foot-7 frame look much smaller. He holds a bottle of lime PowerAde with his right hand and grabs his knee with his left.

“What’s impressed you about this run for Kansas?” a reporter asks about Wildcats’ opponent in the championship game. As questions go, it’s as easy as an uncontested layup.

“Um...um ” Gilchrist begins.

The bottle drops from his hand and hits the floor with a thud. It looks like an accident at first, but then he picks it up and drops it again. And again.

The pause lasts several seconds. Everyone is silent, waiting. Finally, Gilchrist looks up and the camera. He starts over.

“It’s been real good for them,” he said. “But I’m just focused on us for the most part.”

One question down. But here’s the thing about being one of the best young basketball players in the world: There’s always another coming.

***

Maria Kanaley watches her former student at St. Patrick High from afar and worries.
Will people see him look away from the camera during and interview and think he’s surly? Or, even worse, will they hear him and think he’s another dumb jock that doesn’t belong at a university?

Or will they take time to know Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, to understand how far he has come?

“I know a lot of people don’t understand, and they think, ‘Oh, Michael doesn’t know how to talk to the cameras,’” Kanaley said over the phone today. “But that’s not it. That’s not the whole story.

“This is what he’s had to overcome.”

Gilchrist has talked with a stutter for most of his life. He isn’t comfortable in the large group settings that are the norm in his sport, where strangers leaning close and interrupt each other with questions.

Kanaley taught him for four years at St. Patrick, working with him one-on-one in the resource room at the school. She remembers him as “a very, very sensitive young man” who didn’t like reading assignments that dealt with death; he calls her “one of my favorite teachers.”

So Kanaley understands the strain that his stuttering has put on Kidd-Gilchrist better than most. Put him in a social situation with his friends or teammates, and Gilchrist is at ease and speaks freely.

But when you’re a star for the No. 1 team in the country who’s about to be a lottery pick in the NBA Draft, everyone knows you. There are obligations beyond the court and the classroom.

“He doesn’t like all the hoopla around him,” Kanaley said. “I know the stuttering was very difficult for him – very difficult.”

This is not the first obstacle Kidd-Gilchrist has had to overcome in his life. He was just a month shy of his third birthday when his father, Michael Gilchrist Sr., was shot and killed in Camden.

He turned to his uncle, Darrin Kidd, as a father figure. Kidd was at his side throughout his growth as a basketball player and the recruiting process. But then, just hours before he was to set to sign his letter of intent to play at Kentucky, Kidd collapsed and died of a heart attack.

Those personal tragedies didn’t stop him from emerging from St. Patrick as one of the best players in New Jersey history. Neither has the stutter. He could have gone someplace where the attention wouldn’t have been so intense – instead, he picked the most scrutinized team in the country.

“It’s hard to come and play here. It’s not for everybody,” head coach John Calipari said. “There’s no place to hide, no crack to go down into.”

Kidd-Gilchrist has worked on his stutter as hard as his game, meeting with a speech therapist twice a week. It’s still is a work in progress. He is the one starter at the Final Four who did not sit at the podium for the media sessions. He’s also only done a few one-on-one interviews since the season began.

That doesn’t mean he’s hiding – he’s dealt with the media since the eighth grade, and who wouldn’t want to talk about the season he’s having? He’s just more comfortable in smaller groups.

His mother Cindy Richardson believes her son is just maturing like any teenager who goes away to college. She doesn’t want the stuttering to be the focus of what he’s accomplished.

But she also hopes the way he continues to handle it can have an impact on other people.

“I know there are kids who are suffering from low self-esteem or who are being bullied,” Richardson said, “and I hope they might look at my son as an inspiration and say, ‘Wow. I can do great things, too.’”

***

The cameras leave his locker. Kidd-Gilchrist is still leaning forward, but he seems more at ease now that the group around him has thinned out.

A reporter tells him that Jay-Z was wearing his jersey during the Final Four game, and Gilchrist – a huge fan of the rapper – cracks a smile.

The group around him laughs. You hear the words “nice kid” a lot when people talk about Kidd-Gilchrist, and both words apply. There are times when he seems younger than his 18 years, like a kid in a man’s body.

Soon, he’ll be entrusted with helping to turnaround a bad franchise, and Kidd-Gilchrist knows the scrutiny will increase. Asked about how he’s worked handling the media, he said, “It’s going to come. It’s going to come eventually.”

The interview topic turns to the stutter. Kidd-Gilchrist nods, his lip quivering slightly.
“I’m working on a lot of things in life, like school, ball, and ” – he pauses – “and it’s just one of them that I’ve got to work on. It’s really nothing to me. I don’t really pay it no mind.”

The PowerAde bottle hits the ground again.

“It’s a part of me. I can’t change it at all,” he said. “I feel good. I feel great. I feel great about my progress.”

It is a perfect answer to a tough question. A few minutes later, the media are told that the interview session is over, and they shuffle to the exit. The door to the locker room is closed.

The hard part is over. The easy part, the biggest basketball game of his life, is yet to come.